The Science of Self-Massage
Part 1: Tiffany Field and the 7 Secrets of Massage
What Tiffany Field knows about the human body is the best kept secret in healthcare. That’s in spite of her having written 30 books on the science of human touch and its ability to reduce pain and improve health. She’s done the research while serving as a professor in the Departments of Pediatrics, Psychology, and Psychiatry at the University of Miami School of Medicine and Director of the Touch Research Institute.
During the course of her cool career, Field has conducted more than a hundred studies and published more than 400 medical journal articles that demonstrate the power of moderate pressure massage to make the human body healthy, happy and pain-free. Despite her ability to help you feel better fast, you probably haven’t heard of her or her work. Now you have. If you let it, Tiffany Field’s research can help you become healthier, happier, and relieve your pain.
In the Beginning: There Were Preemies
TF became interested in massage when she noticed the beneficial effects it had on her infant daughter who, in 1976, was born prematurely. Against the medical wisdom of the day, she touched her baby a lot and noticed something few in medicine had. The baby seemed to like it and it helped the infant become healthy. Field used this knowledge when she began her research in 1982 at the University of Miami School of Medicine. Six years later, she published a landmark study showing that massage increased the weight and health of preemies.
The results of the study were a big deal. They allowed babies to leave hospitals a week earlier than they otherwise would saving an estimated $10,000 per infant, and making the babies’ parents happy. Nevertheless, Field’s neonatal touch program took years to gain even partial acceptance by American medicine. Today Field’s discovery saves around $5 billion a year on hospital costs in the US alone.
While massage proved a boon to preemies and their parents, it upset the business model that is American medicine by removing $5 billion a year from its coffers. At the time, medical dogma held that touching preterm infants was harmful to their health. Despite long odds, Field persuaded some in the medical community that massage helps babies grow stronger healthier faster.
The Big Question
But how could such a simple thing as touch do so much? Field didn’t know at the time. Thirty years later, after much research, she would explain to the Miami Herald: “pressure to the skin stimulates brain activity, slows down heart rate, lowers blood pressure, allows for a deeper sleep, makes the babies less irritable and ultimately helps mental development and physical growth.”
In 1992, TF established the Touch Research Institute (TRI) the first organization devoted solely to study the effects of human touch. She convinced James Burke the visionary CEO of Johnson & Johnson to make a $250,000 grant to the project. Burke already believed in the power of massage when he met Field and told her he thought touch could be a boon to humankind.
TF would spend the next thirty years exploring the science of human touch. Could massage do for everyone what it did for preemies? Could it make us all grow healthier, happier and reduce our pain. As you’ve probably guessed: the answer is yes.
Secret #1
But the surprising news from Field is that you don’t have to spend money on a massage therapist to get all the health benefits of massage. You can perform moderate pressure massage on yourself and rack up all the health benefits while saving a fortune on medical bills. According to Tiffany Field:
“Studies show that self-massage has all the positive effects of regular massage, especially when people do it daily to get a greater dose of touch.”
Note: This is the 1st of a 4 part series: Tiffany Field and the 7 Secrets of Massage